Adam peered at the compass and saw Tozer give him an assertive nod. Very calm. Julyan would be proud of him.
Squire said, “She’s moored from aft, too. Not enough room to swing!”
Adam took the telescope, still warm from Squire’s grip. No more time. The big schooner’s stem and foremast loomed into view. There were men hurrying about her deck, and the anchor cable was already bar-taut, and possibly moving. Someone running across the forecastle slithered to a halt, peering toward Delfim, which would be fully visible by now. A flash of light, and another: telescopes being trained, but little else.
Tozer muttered, “They know this ship, right enough.”
Adam turned as a seaman shouted, “What th’ hell! Stop him!”
Pecco ignored the muskets as he ran to the side and yelled, “No! Stop, Luis!” and something in Portuguese.
One of Delfim’s crew had broken free and was waving his arms and shouting, until a sailor leaped from behind the capstan, belaying pin swinging like a club, and brought him down.
Pecco stood looking at the man sprawling by his feet. “You were wrong!”
Adam trained his telescope on the other schooner once more. There were men already aloft on the yards and others manning the braces, as if nothing untoward had happened. But the main deck was not cleared for sea. Even as he watched he saw naked bodies, Africans, scrambling up from holds and hatchways, some driven by whips and blows, others clinging to one another with terror.
Squire exclaimed, “Slaves! The bastard! What better cover?” Then, “Their anchor’s hove short, sir!” He glanced bitterly at the compass. “Those scum know we can’t open fire with all those poor devils as targets!”
Adam looked at the sails, and the vessel anchored across the gleam of open water beyond the last islet. And once able to make full sail …
He said, “Clear lower deck!” and saw Jago watching him. Waiting, as if he knew. “Run up the Colours!”
He moved closer to the wheel even as a call shrilled from below Delfim’s deck, as if she were indeed a King’s ship.
“She’s up-anchored, sir!”
Adam had already seen the big schooner’s topsails come alive, a long masthead pendant reaching out like a lance.
There was a bang, and the deck quivered under his feet.
“Do we fight ‘em, sir?”
Adam glanced at Pecco. “Stand by! We’re going to board them, right now!”
More shots, and he saw that the slaver’s topmen had been joined by others with muskets. He felt a few of the balls hitting the deck, jagged splinters lifting like quills as seamen and marines ducked for cover.
He knew the gunner’s mate was crouching by the forward carronade, never taking his eyes from him, even as someone cried out and fell nearby, and remained there motionless.
Adam shouted, “Full elevation, Christie! Knock out all the quoins!” and saw him nod, teeth bared in concentration. Without the wedge-shaped quoins beneath their breeches, the stocky twelve-pounders should rake the rigging and yards, leaving the hostages untouched.
The first carronade responded instantly, bringing down most of the remaining branches and foliage, and blasting away some of the shrouds. Three bodies fell to the deck below, or into the water alongside.
Pecco, face desperate, was hauling down the Portuguese flag, flinching as the second carronade fired and ripped into the big schooner’s topsails. Between shots they could hear the shouts and screams of the slaves who had been herded between forecastle and mainmast, then they were silent. Shock or disbelief, and perhaps the sight of the White Ensign and whatever it might mean to them.
Adam felt a shot hammer into the planking near him, but he did not move. Nothing else mattered now.
“Wheel hard a-starboard! Stand to, lads!”
It seemed to take an age, but he knew it was only seconds before the bows began to respond, until Delfim’s bowsprit and jib-boom were swinging toward and across the slaver’s taut canvas.
More shots, but haphazard, or perhaps they were firing on the slaves.
Squire yelled, “Ready, lads! Grapnels forrard!”
Adam gestured to Tozer, who had been joined by two more seamen at the wheel. “Helm a-lee!” He reached out and seized a stay, bracing himself for the collision.
But it was more of an embrace: a splintering crash as the jib-boom and bowsprit drove through the other ship’s shrouds like a giant lance, and the final, shuddering impact as the bows of both locked together. Vague figures had become the enemy. Yelling and screaming, some falling into the sea between the hulls, escaping one fate for another as some of the released slaves began to shout, even cheer.
Adam heard Lieutenant Sinclair’s voice even above the noise, breathless after running with his men to the point of impact.
“Royal Marines, stand to! Ready to fire!”
Adam drew his sword and shouted, “Boarders away!” as he jumped onto a broken grating and across a huge tangle of canvas. He felt someone reach out and prevent him falling. He did not turn to look but knew it was Jago, knew his cutlass, and the smell of the last “wet” on his breath.
He stared up and behind him at a line of Royal Marines, heads and shoulders and trained muskets. Some had even found time to don their scarlet tunics, although most were hatless. Seamen were swarming up to join him, cutlasses and boarding pikes dispelling any doubt or argument.
There was another deafening shot and an instant response of shouts and cries from slaves and captors alike.
He heard Squire’s powerful voice, and Tozer’s; he must have just left the wheel.
Squire climbed over a shattered spar and stood by him, breathing heavily. “That was the ship’s master. Killed himself, the bastard!”
He was trying to sheathe his sword, but there was blood on the blade and it refused to budge.
A few scattered shots followed, and then, as if to some invisible signal, weapons were clattering across the deck and some of the slaver’s crew were running toward them as if to seek protection from the advancing line of scarlet and blue. With Squire beside him and Jago at his back, Adam made his way toward the poop.
At the foot of the mizzen mast Jago shouted, “A moment, Cap’n!” His voice seemed very loud, as if all movement had stopped.
Adam handed his sword to a grinning seaman and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his coat, which Jago must have had slung over his shoulder despite the chaos surrounding them.
A few more weapons fell, and someone nearby was murmuring, maybe praying, in Portuguese. A man who might have been the schooner’s second-in-command was offering the hilt of his sword and gesticulating toward his captain’s corpse, sprawled near the big double wheel, a pistol still gripped in his hand. He had no face.
Adam looked away as someone grasped his arm. He saw Jago’s sudden, defensive movement, then he lowered his cutlass and said, “Lucky it was you, my son!”
It was a young African boy, naked but for a ragged shirt, staring up at Adam or his uniform with wide eyes. There were bloody welts on his arms where he had been chained or beaten. Adam felt the heavy silence around him as he reached down to clasp the boy’s shoulder. Like Trusty, the one without a tongue.
In the unreal stillness they all heard the distant cry from one of Squire’s hand-picked lookouts, who must have watched the boarding and its aftermath from aloft, unable to help or take part.
Squire lifted his stained blade and signalled toward the overlapping masts. “He’s sighted the Peterel, sir.”
They were no longer alone.
Adam heard a groan, and saw the surgeon bandaging a marine’s bloody head. He had not known that Murray had followed him aboard. The marine, a corporal, saw his captain watching and tried to grin. Then he died.
Adam heard the two hulls creaking together, and the clatter of untended tackle. It was over. So many times. He steeled himself.